Starball In Review – Simply Addictive

Starball is one of the most simple pick-up-and-play games I’ve ever played. Your objective is to collect stars, and avoid red balls while keeping your own ball rolling. Think: Katamari meets Labyrinth.

You can also pick up little question mark circles to activate a random powerup.

What is Starball?

Starball is an addictively simple pick-up-and-play style game which is fun for all ages and skill levels. Take advantage of our unique and amazingly responsive tilt controls to guide your ball around the play area collecting as many stars as possible.

— Collect as many Stars as you can!
— A Hazard is spawned each time a Star is picked up.
— A random Power-up has a chance to spawn each time a Star is picked up.
— Touch a Hazard and its game over!!

The accelerometer controls feel very refined, keeping you in control, which is nice. You don’t often find accelerometer controls this greatâ€¦ A lot of the time, they’re just frustrating.Â That doesn’t mean that Starball’s not hard – at first it is simple, but the enemies quickly pile up and you find yourself scrambling around like a madman, trying to find the next powerup and hoping to Jobs that it’s either an Invinciball or Ballbuster – the big baddy of ’em all which destroys all enemies.

Other than that, though, there’s really not much to talk about, gameplay-wise, here. Starball is a very simple, straightforward game that takes nothing to pick up but so much time to master.

My highest score so far is 21 (which was actually achieved by getting a Ballbuster powerup whilst writing this review). The highest in the world for the difficulty I was playing (Normal) is 98! I can’t even IMAGINE getting 98, but the awesome thing about it is, 21 is satisfying in its own right.

Oh, by the way, this game’s got OpenFeint. Access it by hitting “Scores” on the main menu. I love OpenFeint, so that’s definitely a plus here.

All in all, I can’t really think of any negatives about this game. It’s not the most original thing in the world, but Starball is an addictive game which has been pulled off very well. Of course, it won’t be for everyone, but you can’t go wrong for $0.99.